by Mike Mignola
“I would rather sleep in the car, if that’s enough of an answer for you,” Pym said, looking at the old, six-story brick structure as they drove slowly by.
“Find a side street and park,” Bentley ordered, “preferably someplace in shadow.”
Pym turned the car around at the next intersection, then found a spot on the same side of the street as the Pinnacle. “How about I park it right here?” he asked.
“This is good,” Bentley said, looking out all the windows to see if there was anybody about. It was quiet on the streets of Stewartville, not a soul to be found at this late hour, which was good when one did not want to be noticed.
He put the slouch hat on top of his mask-covered head, pulling it down low enough to cast a shadow across the upper part of his face. “I’ll return as soon as I have the information I seek,” he said, in a menacing tone he’d been practicing for effect.
“And what if he doesn’t have any?” Pym asked, turning slightly in his seat.
“Excuse me?” Bentley asked.
“What if this man … this drunkard and former employee of the circus, doesn’t have anything … or isn’t home … or moved out this afternoon?”
Bentley wasn’t quite sure how to answer.
“I…” he began.
“This could all be for nothing,” Pym said, obviously annoyed—yet again.
Bentley caught a flurry of movement from the corner of his eye and glanced over to see that the ghost of Tianna Hoops had joined him on the long backseat, staring ahead longingly, waiting … waiting for answers.
Waiting for him to bring her peace.
“If I don’t find answers here, I’ll have to look someplace else,” Bentley said, opening the car door and slinking out onto the sidewalk. “I’ll return as quickly as I can … Be ready, in case of trouble.”
“Trouble?” he heard Pym question as he pushed the door closed, cutting off any further comments from the butler.
* * *
Skulking down the alleyway, Grim Death stayed close to the pockets of shadow, swimming in and out of the darkness like a shark coursing through the vast ocean in search of prey. Ahead of him, he saw a flickering entrance sign, on the verge of extinction. He approached cautiously, quickly glancing about him before grabbing the knob and pulling open the door.
A fat man lay sprawled on the floor of the tiled back foyer, the stink of cheap liquor wafting from his every pore. His eyes opened wide at the sight of the grim visage staring at him through the open doorway.
“Oh, sweet Jesus,” the man slurred, squirming upon the floor, trying fruitlessly to get up, his feet and legs sliding on the slick surface. “I don’t want to die! I ain’t ready yet! I’ll quit the booze … I promise!”
Grim Death thought quickly, deciding to use the unique situation to his advantage. “What is your name, child of the earthly plain?” he asked in his creepiest voice as he stepped into the hallway, allowing the door to slam closed behind him.
“Otis,” the drunken man cried. He was still trying to stand, refusing to look at the deathly visage before him.
Grim Death reached down and grabbed the man under one of his flabby arms, helping him to stand. It was not an easy task, and Grim Death found that he almost joined Otis on the floor.
“Stand up, Otis!” he commanded the drunk, managing to prop the man against the locked door into the hotel proper.
“Do you live in this place?” Grim Death asked.
“I promise,” Otis muttered, his eyes locked shut. “I promise I’ll never take another drop. I promise, if you don’t take me, I’ll remain sober till the day I die.”
“Which will be today…”
Otis shrieked and wailed, almost sliding back down onto the floor, but Grim Death caught his arm, preventing his fall.
“Unless…”
Otis stopped his carrying on, opened his bleary eyes, and looked into the face of Death.
“Unless what?” he asked, the alcohol smell from his mouth so strong that Bentley was surprised it didn’t melt his mask.
“Unless you assist me,” Grim Death said.
“What I gotta do?” Otis asked, raring to go.
“Do you live here, Otis?”
The drunken fat man nodded eagerly.
“Then you will open this door, and we will enter together.”
“Okay,” Otis said, starting to fish through his pockets, looking for his key. Change and bits of junk spilled out onto the floor of the foyer. “I know my key is in here somewhere.”
“And do you know others who live in this building, Otis?”
The drunken man looked up, his hand filled with items from his pocket.
“Yeah, I guess,” he said. “You lookin’ for somebody … other than me, that is?”
“Would you rather I just leave with you?” Grim Death asked.
“No! No! No!” Otis objected. “Who you lookin’ for?”
“Charlie Huggston.” Grim Death watched as the fat man’s eyes grew wide with recognition.
“You’re lookin’ for Charlie?” he asked incredulously, his hand still loaded with junk from his pockets.
Grim Death saw what he was looking for and reached out to pick up the key and hand it to Otis. “Yes.”
Otis took the key with a trembling hand.
“He lives up on four,” he said.
“Thank you,” Grim Death said. “Open the door.”
Otis turned, and after three or four tries managed to get the key in the lock and open the door.
“He’s kind of a jerk,” he added, pulling the key from the lock and returning it to his pocket.
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Grim Death answered, moving toward the stairs. “Four, you said?”
“Four-oh-three,” Otis confirmed.
“You’ve been very helpful, Otis,” Grim Death said, as he began to climb the stairs.
“Does that mean you ain’t gonna take me?” he asked, a tremble of joy evident in his drunken slur.
“Not tonight.”
“Then when?” Otis called out.
“When it’s your time,” Grim Death told him.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” he heard Otis mutter beneath his breath, as he continued his climb to the fourth floor.
* * *
Bentley found himself just a bit winded. He paused on the landing of the fourth floor before continuing on to the door marked 403 in tarnished brass numbers.
He would have preferred to knock, but when wearing the visage of Grim Death, rules of etiquette were all but suspended. He felt a surge of power go through him, something that he only experienced when wearing the mask, hat, and coat of Death’s agent. He slammed his shoulder hard into the door, feeling the cheap lock give way, and the door swung into the room.
And Grim Death entered.
The entry went unnoticed, for Charlie Huggston lay on his mattress, clad only in his boxers, snoring, an empty glass bottle on the floor beside the bed.
Pushing the door closed behind him, Grim Death approached the bed, standing over the sleeping man.
“Charles Huggston.”
The man continued to sleep.
“Charles Huggston!” he said, a little bit louder.
And still the man continued to sleep.
Grim Death reached down, grabbed the man by the front of his yellowed T-shirt, and twisted it in his fist. “Charles Huggston!” He gave the man a violent shake. “Grim Death would have words with you!”
Huggston’s eyes snapped open blearily and blinked.
“AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” he began to scream, as Grim Death muffled the cries with a gloved hand.
“Be silent!” he commanded. “Or I will silence you.”
The man went quiet, looking up with fear-filled eyes.
“Do we understand each other?” Grim Death asked.
Charlie nodded.
Grim Death removed his hand.
“Who the hell are you supposed to be?” Charlie Huggston asked, a tremble of
terror evident in his voice.
“I am an agent of Death, seeking answers,” Grim Death said as he loomed above the man.
“Answers?” Charlie asked. “What kinda answers … I don’t know nothin’!”
“Doctor Nocturne’s Circus of Unearthly Wonderment,” Grim Death growled. “Something is … wrong there.”
“Besides them being no good sons of bitches for letting me go?” Charlie complained.
Grim Death slowly nodded, the action urging the man to continue.
“I don’t know,” he said, seeming apprehensive. “There were things, I guess.” He reached over the side of the bed and grabbed the discarded bottle lying there. “You mind?” Without waiting for an answer, Charlie tipped the bottle back for any moisture that remained inside.
“What kind of things?” Bentley asked, as Charlie looked down the neck of the bottle, as if expecting it to suddenly fill up again.
“I don’t know … things … bad luck and stuff. People getting hurt … doing things to each other, and…”
He angrily tossed the bottle onto the floor and threw his scrawny bare legs over the side of the bed, bending down to rifle through the newspapers and dirty clothes that covered the ground. “I think I’ve got another bottle somewhere,” he muttered beneath his stinking breath.
“And why do you think that is?” Grim Death attempted to cajole. “What do you blame for this … bad luck?”
Under a pile of filthy clothes, Charlie discovered a half-empty bottle of something dark and smiled from ear to ear. “There you are,” he said almost lovingly, unscrewing the cap, never taking his eyes from the bottle.
“What caused the bad luck, Charlie?” Grim Death demanded.
He was bringing the bottle to his mouth and stopped, thinking. What he thought about filled him with fear; Grim Death could see it on the drunkard’s face.
“The Chamber,” he said, and made a face. “There’s something about the Chamber that…”
The man never got the chance to finish his statement. The window to the right of where he knelt exploded inward in a shower of glass and wooden framing, as something large and stinking of the wild forced its way inside.
Grim Death jumped back as he was pelted by razor-sharp shards of glass, throwing the arm of his trench coat up to protect his face. Whatever it was that had forced its way inside decided to deal with him first, charging forward with a bestial grunt and throwing him savagely back against the far wall as if he were a rag doll.
Charlie was making a mad dash for the door, screaming like a lunatic, when the beast grabbed him. The old man continued to scream, certainly sober now, as the powerful, manlike animal hauled him up from his feet and raised him above its head.
Through bleary eyes, Grim Death watched in horror—finally recognizing the gorilla invader as it savagely brought a still screaming Charlie Huggston down upon its raised, stubby knee, nearly breaking the old man in two.
Grim Death knew this animal—this killer—having seen him that very afternoon calmly reading a newspaper in the Chamber of the Unearthly, but there was nothing calm about him now. Mr. Bippo, still wearing its brown, specially tailored suit, repeatedly slammed Charlie Huggston’s body down upon the wood floor to make certain he was dead, and when that was most definitely the case, it tossed the broken body of the man aside.
The gorilla turned its attention to Grim Death, and silently charged at him. There was a look in the beast’s eyes, something strangely calm—almost dreamy.
Realizing that he needed to do something or he would share in Charlie Huggston’s fate, Grim Death jammed his hands into the pockets of his coat and produced the twin Colt revolvers that had once belonged to his father. Aiming at the moving target, he fired twice, striking the great ape in the shoulder of its suit coat and causing the beast to recoil.
Still, it did not make a sound. It did not roar or cry out in pain. It remained eerily silent, with that strange look in its dark gaze.
Grim Death was about to fire again when the gorilla spun away, galloping toward the broken window, and leapt outside onto the fire escape and over the side.
Grim Death hesitated for only a moment, weapons aimed at the shattered widow. There was a part of him that was terrified, that wanted to leave the blood-spattered room immediately and flee to the safety of his home. But there was another part.
A newer part.
This part overrode the fear, clamping it down and propelling him forward to action. This part—this frightening part—had a purpose, a job that it wanted to see through to the end as an agent of Death itself.
Grim Death appeared upon the metal fire escape, peering down into the alley below. There was a truck parked in the alleyway, and the gorilla was making its way toward it.
Seeing an opportunity that he couldn’t allow to escape, Grim Death opened fire with his twin pistols, striking the gorilla once again, this time in the leg, causing the animal to fall to the rubbish-strewn street.
“Stay where you are, beast!” Grim Death ordered as he started down the fire escape, not really sure why he was talking to an animal. He doubted the beast could understand. What he really wanted was to have a talk with whoever was driving that truck.
He was just about to the last flight of metal stairs when the door to the truck swung open, and a large bald man climbed out from the driver’s seat.
The Human Dynamo looked up at him, freezing him on the landing. There was that familiar stare again … exactly what he had seen when he looked into the eyes of the gentleman gorilla.
Grim Death aimed his weapons.
“You and I will talk,” he said, putting on his creepy voice.
The Human Dynamo barely reacted, lumbering toward the fire escape and bending down to place the flat of his hand upon the bottom step.
At first Grim Death had no idea what the man was doing, but then he saw the bluish sparks of electricity leaping from the man’s fingertips to the iron of the steps …
And felt the numbing jolt of thousands of volts as they coursed through his body, making him perform a kind of crazy jig before pitching forward into space.
Succumbing to the pull of darkness.
Chapter Eighteen
BEFORE:
Bentley awakened from a deathlike sleep, feeling more alive than he had in a very long time.
He wasn’t exactly sure how, but he was certain he had been changed. Perhaps something had been taken away—or maybe even added.
But he was different, that he could tell.
He wanted to jump from his bed and find his parents, to tell them that they needn’t worry about him being sick anymore, that he was better now and Death would not be coming for him anytime soon.
How long was it before he remembered they were gone? He made it down the hall and halfway down the stairs, where he found Pym standing at the bottom.
“Bentley,” the man said, obviously very glad to see him, but something was wrong.
And then the boy remembered the solarium laboratory, and what his parents and Professor Romulus had tried to do—and the end result.
“They’re gone,” he said, his voice cracking as he descended to the grand foyer in his pajamas, “and they’re not coming back.”
And he dropped to his knees right there, and Pym came to him, taking him in his arms and promising that he would take care of him no matter what.
There was great comfort in those words, a comfort that he carried with him through those darkest of days.
Bentley had awakened on the day of his parents’ burial. Pym insisted that he return to bed at once, to continue his recuperation, but Bentley would hear none of it.
He needed to be there, to say his final good-bye.
The sun was shining brightly but delivered no warmth on the cold winter’s day. There was a large turnout, important people in government and industry. They approached him, saying how sorry they were for his loss, but after a while he stopped listening, instead trying to truly understand what had happened that day a
t the house.
What had Professor Romulus and his parents really done when they’d trapped his friend? And why did he have the sense that things were far from over?
That what his parents and the professor had attempted would have lasting repercussions for him?
It was when he started to see the ghosts that he knew he was right.
* * *
The first time he saw a ghost was at the cemetery, as the remains of his parents were being laid to rest.
At first he believed them to be other mourners, people who had come to visit the graves of their loved ones and grieve, but then he saw the way they moved, the way they floated above the ground.
It was then that he realized what they were, and actually believed for a little while that he was losing his mind.
But slowly, eventually, he came to understand.
Years passed, and still he continued to see them.
Bentley saw them everywhere he went: riding into the city, sitting beside him during a matinee at the picture show, walking in Central Park. The ghosts were always with him.
But never as much as they were back at Hawthorne House.
It became just a matter of fact that he was never alone. No matter where he went on the grand estate, there was always somebody nearby—haunting him, or whatever it was that they were doing.
And their numbers were growing.
Bentley was never sure exactly what had compelled him one late-summer evening. He’d attempted to communicate with the spirits before, but they did not respond, no matter how hard he tried to get them to interact.
But on that hot summer night, Bentley felt driven. It was getting so bad that no matter where his eyes fell, one of them was there. He needed to know … wanted to know …
Why? Why were they there … Why were they still on the earthly plane? Why were they bothering him, of all people?
And on that night, as he sat in one of the estate’s drawing rooms, with the French doors open and a warm, late August breeze causing the curtains to flutter, he decided it was time.
